Chương 7
Silence.
The sentence hurt both of them.
Margaret could hear traffic through his phone.
Finally he said, “I pulled a chair.”
“You wanted me to fall.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You wanted to humiliate me.”
He said nothing.
Margaret’s voice shook.
“That frightened me.”
“I wouldn’t hurt you.”
“You did.”
Another silence.
This one was different.
Not argumentative.
Ryan breathed out.
“I’m sorry about the chair.”
Margaret sat down.
It was the first apology.
Small. Inadequate. Late.
Real.
“Thank you.”
“I was furious.”
“I know.”
“I thought you’d changed the papers to screw us.”
“You mean the papers you believed gave you my house?”
He cursed softly.
“I can’t talk to you.”
“You called me.”
“I know.”
Margaret waited.
Then Ryan said, “Vanessa says you set her up.”
“How?”
“She says you knew she was helping me organize Dad’s records and left things around that made it look like you wanted the transfer.”
Margaret nearly laughed.
“Such as?”
“A letter.”
“What letter?”
“The one Dad wrote.”
Margaret stopped breathing.
Frank had written many letters.
Most were useless.
He loved notes.
Pick up milk.
Plumber Tuesday.
Don’t let me forget Ed’s birthday again.
Near the end, he had written longer things too, usually in the yellow legal pads he kept beside the recliner.
“What letter?”
“The one about the house.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Ryan was silent.
Margaret stood.
“Ryan.”
“Dad wrote that he wanted the house to stay with the family.”
“That sounds like him.”
“He wrote that I’d know what to do with it.”
Margaret leaned against the counter.
“Do you have the letter?”
“Vanessa does.”
“Have you shown the police?”
“Yes.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
This was the first new thing since Christmas.
And it bothered her.
Not because Frank could legally transfer a house by leaving a note. Margaret did not know enough law to pretend that.
It bothered her because Frank might have told Ryan something he had never told her.
“Send me a picture.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to see my husband’s letter.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“The police took it.”
Margaret sat again.
“Then I suppose I’ll see it when I see it.”
“You really didn’t know?”
“No.”
Ryan’s voice changed.
A trace of uncertainty entered it.
“Vanessa said you did.”
Margaret stared at the empty bird feeder through the window.
“I think,” she said carefully, “you and Vanessa need to start asking each other better questions.”
He hung up without saying goodbye.
Margaret called her attorney.
Then she called Emily.
Then, against the attorney’s advice to avoid unnecessary family archaeology, she went into Frank’s study and opened every drawer.
The room still smelled faintly like him.
Not Frank exactly.
Paper, cedar, old aftershave.
She sat at his desk with three boxes of documents and found nothing about the house.
She did find a receipt for a toaster they had returned in 2004.
A postcard Ryan sent from college.
A photograph of Emily asleep in the back seat of a station wagon.
Six unopened packets of artificial sweetener Frank had stolen from a diner.
And a note in his handwriting tucked inside an envelope labeled RYAN.
Margaret stared at it for a long time.
She did not open it.
She called Ryan instead.
“I found something with your name on it.”
He arrived twenty minutes later.
Margaret had asked her neighbor Judith to sit in the living room.
Ryan noticed immediately.
“You brought a chaperone?”
Judith looked up from a magazine.
“I volunteered.”
Ryan rubbed his face.
Margaret held out the envelope.
“I haven’t opened it.”
He stared.
“Where was it?”
“Your father’s desk.”
Ryan took it.
His hands trembled.
Margaret looked away.
He opened the envelope.
Inside was a single folded page.
Ryan read it.
Then read it again.
“What does it say?” Margaret asked.
He did not answer.
“Ryan.”
He handed it to her.
Frank’s handwriting had deteriorated by then, sloping unevenly across the page.
Ryan—
You’ve done more this year than anybody should have to do. Don’t let helping me become the excuse for not building your own life.
The house is your mother’s. Don’t fight her about it someday. You’ll be tempted because you’re my son and because you’re stubborn.
Take care of your sister but don’t run her life.
And for God’s sake learn to ask for help before things get bad.
Dad
Margaret sat down.
Judith quietly stood and walked into the kitchen.
Ryan stared at the floor.
“That’s not the letter Vanessa showed me.”
Margaret’s skin prickled.
“What did she show you?”
His mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Margaret handed the paper back.
“Ryan.”
“She showed me a photograph.”
“Of what?”
“A note from Dad.”
“What did it say?”
“That the house should go to me because I’d taken care of him.”
Margaret looked at the envelope.
“Did you ever see the original?”
“No.”
“Did you ask?”
Ryan closed his eyes.
“No.”
The answer was barely audible.
Margaret felt anger rise so quickly she stood.
“You risked my home because of a photograph?”
“I believed her.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to.”
That stopped her.
Ryan sat in Frank’s old chair.
For the first time since Christmas, he did not defend himself.
“I wanted to believe Dad saw what I did,” he said.
Margaret remained standing.
Ryan looked at the note.
“I wanted him to say it mattered.”
“It did matter.”
“Not to you.”
“That is not true.”
“You never said it.”
Margaret opened her mouth.
Then closed it.
Ryan gave a small, exhausted nod.
“Exactly.”
Margaret sat across from him.
“I thought you knew.”
He laughed softly.
“That’s kind of the family motto, isn’t it?”
Margaret looked at the floor.
After a while she said, “I’m sorry.”
Ryan rubbed the paper between his fingers.
“You called the police.”
“Yes.”
“You’re still going through with that?”
Margaret’s sympathy met something harder inside her.
“Yes.”
Ryan’s face closed again.
“I knew it.”
“Ryan—”
“No. This is who you are.”
He stood.
May you like
Margaret did not follow.
At the doorway he stopped.
